Elegant Connecticut Retreat

A Connecticut home with French flair.

A celebrated interior designer infuses his Connecticut country house with elegant French flair.

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Winter Gardens

It is from a fauteuil that interior designer Robert Couturier most enjoys the french formal gardens sourrounding his country retreat, a stately neoclassical clapboard house in Litchfield County, Connecticut—and that is precisely how he likes it.

In fact, Couturier designed every element of the 16-acre property to express his own ideas of living well, a philosophy that holds pleasing the eye as important as satisfying creature comforts. "Not many people would choose to live this formally, but for me, this is the way I've always lived," Couturier explains.

The gardens in winter.

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Disparate Fabrics

The Paris-born, New York–based designer is from the old school of connoisseurship, where the goal isn't to create an instant room but to take great pleasure in discerningly selecting each and every object, whether it be an Old Master portrait or a pair of 1940s sculptures by Serge Roche that once belonged to cosmetics empress Elizabeth Arden. Surrounding himself with fine things, however, does not mean perpetually tiptoeing around the china. These rooms are designed to be lived in, which includes giving his four Shih Tzus full run of the house. "There is nothing here I can't live without," he says.

Couturier and his husband, architectural historian Jeffrey Morgan, entertain their friends and neighbors often and planned the house befittingly. The main reception rooms are on the second floor, complete with elevated ceilings and impressive scale. Curvaceous Louis XV furniture populates the salon, including a gilt-wood daybed where the designer often sits after dinner, surrounded by his dogs. The arrangement of fine antiques is loosened up with a pair of minimalist Jean-Michel Frank shagreen low tables and flame-stitch–covered Jansen sofas.

The eclectic arrangement of furniture in the salon is designed for convivial gatherings. Louis XVI side chairs in Prelle silk. 1940s sofas in Brunschwig & Fils fabric and coffee table, Jean-Michel Frank. Louis XV daybed and curtains in Scalamandré silk.

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Whimsical Touch

"You carry the memory of rooms around with you, and unconsciously they come out in your design," reflects Couturier, whose dining room has affinities with the one at Charles de Beistegui's Château de Groussay, which he used to visit often as a guest. Creamy white-paneled walls and curtains of gauzy, hand-embroidered Le sage fabric play down the formality of crimson velvet-upholstered chairs and the geometric slate-and-limestone–inlaid floor.

While those simple curtains suit the country setting, Couturier as a rule doesn't believe in elaborate window treatments. "I see fancy curtains and think, What a waste of money," the designer says with a laugh. "For me, they are a cache-misère, a kind of camouflage, taking away light, air, and room."

The home is furnished elegantly but cozily, many rooms featuring a mix of provincial 17th-century antiques and eclectic pieces. The rich tones of old oak are enlivened by an array of patterned textiles in vibrant greens, reds, and golds.

In the master bedroom, everything is intimately scaled, including the 18th-century French canopy bed by Georges Jacob. "People can't believe I sleep in a queen-size bed!" Couturier shares with amusement. The room is catapulted into the here and now by a sleek goatskin-covered bronze stool by Paris-based designer Hervé Van der Straeten—a classic Couturier touch.

"This house in a way is an old part of myself, but you have to be careful not to go too far with it," he says. With his penchant for the bold, contemporary stroke, the designer assuredly keeps one foot planted firmly in tomorrow.

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